The Student Union has begun to sift through the various suggestions offered by its committees and representatives to address smoking on campus and aims to find a solution that accommodates smokers, but also addresses health concerns of other Boston University students, Union members said.
Union secretary Sophie Miller, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she acknowledges that the most difficult part of passing a proposal may be the whirlwind of opinions on smoking.
“The challenges [on this issue] include the need to find a solution that satisfies both smokers and non-smokers alike,” Miller said.
President Howard Male said Union has asked students for feedback on how to address the issue.
“We acknowledge that there are many different stakeholders, including students, neighbors, businesses, university administrators, the city,” Male, a senior in the School of Hospitality Administration and School of Management, said.
Male said that smoking has remained a key agenda focus this semester and that students have begun to pose many logical questions, such as whether they should be more concerned with policy or community, what BU’s role is in terms of guiding students’ health decisions and what BU resources would be required for this proposal.
The idea for change stems from “a very vocal group of students” who want a complete policy change, if not a ban, Male said.
Union members said that the BU Medical Campus already has a smoking ban, causing some of them to consider uniformity as a factor in their final decision.
School of Management freshman David Whatley, a member of the advocacy committee, said he is pushing for a “courtesy campaign” that would give smokers on campus advice for smoking etiquette.
“What I suggested during Monday’s meeting was the creation of a ‘courtesy campaign’ advising smokers to be more aware of others when they smoke,” Whatley said. “I would also advocate for more outdoor ashtrays to discard cigarette butts and ashes, thereby keeping the campus cleaner.”
Whatley said he favored the idea of a campaign as opposed to the implementation of designated smoking areas, which some other Union members have proposed.
“Building smoking tents or hubs would take a significant amount of time and money to build,” he said. “Conversely, a courtesy campaign with posters and signs throughout the campus, along with two dozen or so ashtrays, would only use a fraction of those resources.”
The campaign concept would be less harsh on smokers, Whatley said.
“Smokers may be more willing to oblige with the campaign and use the ashtrays instead of being secluded to smoking tents or pulling out measuring tape to calculate distances from buildings,” he said.
Miller said she agreed that the ideas of the issue hold higher priority than the actual implementation.
“We’re focusing primarily on a change in the campus mindset and, secondarily, on a change in policy,” she said.
Miller added that the outreach committee has begun to gather data to develop a more thorough representation of students’ opinions before the advocacy committee completes its proposal.
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